One Hundred Ninety Eight

 I was on Wanita Hari Ini TV3 with Cik Nah for their Mother's Day Special yesterday. Prior to that, the crew requested some photos of ours together so I had mummy gone through the photo albums for this.

Looking back at those photos, I realised how precious it is to have little pieces of time preserved. Moments that once felt ordinary — a car ride, a birthday cake, a random afternoon — suddenly become priceless when years have quietly passed.

I realised that these days, our photos mostly live in our phone galleries, and somehow, they get lost in the busyness of life. And it is somehow not cool to upload 100 photos from our recent trip or event on social media when your goal was to merely seal your memories there; so that it's easier to look back. 

Perhaps I need to make better use of this blog for documentation purposes. 

So, last month Syafiq, mummy and I went for umrah. Syafiq was really anxious about us stopping at Abu Dhabi due to the recent Iran-US war. But Alhamdulillah nothing happened and he found his peace in haramain. Unlike last year's umrah trip where we stopped in Madinah first, this year I decided that we went to Mekah first — and that turned out to be a brilliant idea. The moment I step foot outside Mekah, fever hit me (I anticipated this). So most of my time in Madinah was spent lying down in bed if not at the mosque. OK OK shopping needs a special mention too, I know, but I had no nafsu for shopping much due to my weak condition.

Before flying back home, we had another stopover... that was in Istanbul. Masya Allah Masya Allah Istanbul was magical! I've never fallen in love in a city before (I lied, I have) but Istanbul is a different kind of love. It's the kind of love that makes you look through the flight tickets once more to return to the city. It was such a beauty!

I may not be able to articulate my love for the city (partly because I have already poured my heart on Facebook) (screw you social media!), but our couple of days in the historical city did leave my heart a little fuller, softer, and strangely homesick for a place that was never home to begin with.

Now for the first time in the longest time, let me spam some photos of our recent trip.

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OK shoot. I've tried to upload the photos for the past hour but kept failing. Will try again tomorrow (if I ingat lar).